Lets see who has the slowest net connection

[Ghiadude]

ok ill set the record straight
i used to work in a fairly large telco heehehhehehe
9 times out of 10 its not your crappy line thats causing you greif. its usually a modem chipset thats trying to get a 56k connection when its on a line thats too long to support it (causing errors)dropouts
and other assorted nice things. if your getting dropped off first disable call waiting. NO. 1 cause of dropouts

If your getting a slow connection and your rural you should not get ANYTHING LESS THAN 19200. this is wrong and should be looked at.(less than 19200 anywhere in australia is... well... illegal) call Telstra country wide and they will, after much poking and proding get someone out there to do a molds test. this will show connection speed and your error count. theyll then identify your chipset(modem) and install an initialisation string to lock it to an appropriate speed. this will give you an effective 19200 connection.

pair gains systems are not what you think they are. yes they divide the bandwidth and yes you will get slower speed. the worst were 4ch digital pair gains they gave each of its 4 customers a quarter of the bandwidth 14400bps. these units have been getting phased out for years and should be replaced by RAM 8ph2's if they havnt been already.

now for rims... remote integrated multiplexer basically an optical fiber run out to rural areas to enable more people to get phone service. this is not a pair gain device (unless non integrated)

isdn will give you decent connection speeds miles from nowhere

when you buy a phone line you get what you asked for, voice transmission line with the ability to transmit data to 19200bps, thats all, nothing more, stop your whinghing!!

if you buy an ADSL,ISDN etc you get what youve asked for.., a data product.